


Smooth Sailor

by elise_509



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-22
Updated: 2011-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-14 23:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elise_509/pseuds/elise_509
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Turns out, Steve's not as smooth as his nickname implies.  Luckily, Catherine's a bit more suave and sly...and ready to play matchmaker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smooth Sailor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mecurtin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mecurtin/gifts).



> Spoilers: Through 1.09 "Poi'pu"
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine!
> 
> A/N: To mecurtin, who requested that Steve’s nickname of “Smooth Dog” be traced back to its awkward, totally unsmooth genesis via the use of [Alex’s old pickup line:](http://www.alexoloughlinonline.com/902/before-alex-was-famous/ ) “Um, excuse me, sorry to bother you but I was just wondering if you would like to have sex with me sometime.”

 

Danny has to admit, Catherine Rollins is one cool woman. She’s brilliant, she’s beautiful, she’s tough, and she makes Steve stupid-happy. In principle, he wants to dislike her for that last point, because if anyone is making Steve stupid-happy, he’d prefer it be him, but he can’t even muster up any ire over that.

 

She’s just that awesome.

 

“I have no idea what you see in him, really, I don’t.” Danny tells her point blank from across the cramped booth, hands up in surrender as he pretends to be completely bewildered.

 

“Hey,” Steve says defensively. He glares, but Danny knows he takes it as the joke it’s meant to be. Because really, it doesn’t take a genius to understand exactly what Catherine sees in Steve. He could easily list off a hundred things right now, off the top of his head, which make Steve McGarrett annoyingly desirable.

 

First one would be that damn smile, the adorable slightly goofy one that makes Danny’s whole world turn sideways.

 

“I mean, the guy’s impatient, he’s stubborn, he’s reckless, he _does not listen – **ever**_ – not to mention he’s got the emotional capacity of a rock.”

 

“What, Danno?” Steve fakes that he wasn’t paying attention, glancing at Danny like he just now noticed Danny was still talking.

 

“A rock rigged with C4, mind you, but a rock nonetheless. A rock that can kill you.”

 

“How am I a _rock_?” Steve’s eyebrows lift and wrinkle, lips quirking into that disbelieving but slightly amused smirk of his.

 

“You’re a fucking avalanche, man. Not just one rock. Many rocks.” Danny makes a gesture that, in his mind, signals rocks shearing off the steep face of a cliff and crushing unsuspecting victims underneath. Steve repeats the gesture mockingly.

 

“What is that even?”

 

“What is what?”

 

“This.” Steve repeats Danny’s motion again and then turns to Catherine. “I swear, one of these days I’m going to start compiling all these hand motions and gestures into a dictionary of Danny’s own unique form of sign language.”

 

“Here, this one’s universal. No dictionary needed.” Steve rolls his eyes at Danny’s proffered middle finger.

 

Catherine laughs, the sound light and musical, and puts her hand on Steve’s forearm, sliding it down to his wrist and letting it remain there. Danny’s aware that his stare lingers over that touch for a moment too long – enough time to wonder how warm Steve’s skin must be – before he remembers himself and where he is and who he’s with.

 

Steve and Catherine have been in each other’s space all night, with the kind of comfortable ease only displayed by two old, good friends. Two old, good friends who happen to roll around in bed every now and again when they find themselves located near approximately the same coordinates.

 

Danny figures that’s where they’re headed soon, back to Steve’s place to catch up in between the sheets. He’s been flip-flopping between thinking about that and desperately trying _not_ to think about that since beer number two, when he first noticed Catherine wearing Steve’s faded blue USNA t-shirt.

 

Even matched with a pair of jeans that make her ass look fantastic, the shirt still looks better on Steve, stretching across his broad chest and clinging to his shoulders.

 

Beer number four is in his hand and he takes a long sip, draining the last drop. He levels a look at Catherine, turning on a serious stare. She stares back at him, mouth set in a matching frown but her eyes sparkling with mischief like she knows he’s up to no good.

 

“Really, Cath, you could do a lot better. How’d you even wind up with this doofus in the first place?”

 

“Any port in the storm, Danny. A girl can get lonely out there on the high seas,” Catherine kids and Steve throws a hand up in the air, rolling his eyes and edging his way out of the booth.

 

“Great, now I got the two of you ganging up on me. I need another beer.”

 

“I’ll take one too, babe.” Danny lifts up his now empty bottle and waggles it at Steve.

 

“I didn’t offer you one, did I?” Steve retorts.

 

“At least bring the lady another, be a gentleman.”

 

“I’ve got Cath taken care of, Danny, but you, you can drag your ass up to the bar and get your own drink.”

 

Danny sets his beer bottle down on the table with a disappointed thud as Steve disappears into the crowd. Catherine smiles at him warmly, dark eyes lit up from both the lively conversation and the scotch in her hand.

 

The woman drinks scotch. For christ’s sake.

 

“Seriously. How. How did he get you.”

 

“No one’s been ‘got’, Danny. I think you’d know it if Steve really ‘got’ somebody, the world would tilt on its axis.” Catherine remarks. “Steve and I have just been friends for ages. Since Academy. We, as a _we_ , have never been anything more than casual.”

 

“Wait wait, that’s like…fifteen years. Sixteen years? Sixteen years you’ve put up with his bullshit?” Danny can’t quite wrap his head around that. He can’t imagine casually hooking up with someone for that long and not having it _go_ anywhere. Steve and Catherine must be wired so very differently than he is. But then, he guesses he already knew that. “They should give you a medal, sticking with him so long.”

 

“Well really, given the way the whole thing started out, it’s a small wonder we ever became friends at all. But I took pity on the poor guy, threw him a bone.” Catherine winks and Danny leans forward, rests his elbows on the table.

 

“This is a story I have to hear. Do tell.” He cups his hands and making a _come on, out with it_ motion with both, urging her on. She bites her lush bottom lip, raising one perfect eyebrow at him before her mouth curves into a wicked smile.

 

“He never told you how we met?”

 

“Yes, while we were out getting our nails done.” Danny quips. “Let me guess, you met cute at target practice, both reaching for the same gun. You giggled, he laughed, he charitably let you take the AK-47 so you figured the least you could do would be to give him your number.”

 

“AK-47.” Catherine repeats. “Exactly what do you think we did at the Naval Academy?”

 

“I have no godly idea. Steve treats his past like the whole thing’s been redacted.”

 

Catherine shrugs like, yeah, maybe it _has_ , and ain’t that a kick in the pants. She’s probably used to hearing “It’s classified,” has probably said it to people in her own life a gazillion times herself, but every time Steve says it to him, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. How the fuck do you get to know somebody when he can’t – and won’t – tell you shit?

 

“You’ll learn to take what you can get, Danny,” Catherine says, her voice going soft and compassionate and for a second he thinks she’s actually going to reach across the table and pat his hand.

 

“What are you two plotting now?” Steve interrupts, sitting back down. His knees knock Danny’s underneath the table, his legs too long for the small space. He sets a fresh glass in front of Catherine, and slides a beer across the tabletop to Danny before taking a sip of his own.

 

Danny doesn’t watch Steve’s throat work as he drinks, nor does he stare at Steve’s slightly wet lips as they draw off the bottle.

 

Except that’d be a more believable lie if Steve didn’t then catch his gaze and hold it.

 

Danny leans back in his seat and taps the tabletop, right-left-right, hands patting the surface.

 

“Catherine here was just about to tell me how you two met.”

 

“Not much of a story, we met in chemistry class.” Steve shrugs off-handedly, idly glancing off to the right where a football game is playing on the flat screen TV above the bar.

 

“No we didn’t.” Catherine shakes her head, looking at him and poking him in the shoulder with a finger. Steve turns back to her, face blank, either uncomprehending or doing a good impression of it. “We didn’t! You know we didn’t.”

 

Steve hesitates a moment, taking in the expression on her face, and then groans.

 

“Oh, no, no. Please don’t.”

 

“Don’t, don’t what?” Danny interjects.

 

“Cath, I beg of you.”

 

“Well now I’m incredibly interested. Now I have to know.”

 

“You really don’t.”

 

“He does, Steve. He does.” Catherine states simply and lightly, facing the indisputable fact with a grin. “So.” She sits up straight and places her palms face down on the table. “The delightful story of how Steve and I officially met. Help me out, it was…what, two, three months into our first year?” She glances at Steve for affirmation and he closes his eyes.

 

“You’re evil.”

 

“At this point, we _kind of_ knew who everyone was in our class.” She makes a teeter-tottering, waving motion with her hand, her body moving slightly along with it. “We were in that vague stage where you sorta have your friends, but people were still feeling each other out. You know what I mean. I’m out one night at this bar with a few girls, a few guys, which was rare because free time was _nil_. So obviously, we’re out to have a good time. We went to…what was the name of that place…?”

 

“Riordan’s. It was Riordan’s,” Steve sighs.

 

“And who do I see there, but Steve, with _his_ group of guys. I’m at the bar to grab another drink and then there he is, standing right next to me – and he doesn’t recognize me. Doesn’t even know we have two classes together.”

 

“Super observant, this one.”

 

“I did too recognize you.”

 

“He taps my shoulder – yes, taps it, like a stranger asking someone for the time, and get this. He says: _’Um, excuse me, sorry to bother you but I was just wondering if you would like to have sex with me sometime.’_ ” Catherine lets that one sit there for a minute, letting it wash over Danny so he can revel in its glorious absurdity.

 

“ _Steven._ You did _not_ actually say that to this woman. Tell me that was not your pick-up line of choice.”

 

Steve fidgets, looking everywhere but at Danny’s eyes.

 

“McGarrett, I can’t believe you.”

 

“What? I was nervous.” Steve blurts out. “I was nervous, okay? Can’t a guy be nervous?”

 

“You. Steve McGarrett. You were nervous.”

 

“I’m not allowed to be nervous?”

 

“He wasn’t nervous,” Catherine waves off Steve’s protests and leans across the table to stage whisper to Danny. “He used it on all the girls. I think it even _worked_ on a few of the locals.”

 

“It did not _work_ on _any_ locals because I did not use it! It wasn’t a line, it wasn’t intentional; it was just a mistake.” Steve is insistent but Danny doesn’t believe a word he’s saying.

 

“Please tell me you slapped him or threw a drink in his face, something, anything.”

 

“Like I would waste good liquor like that.” Catherine snorts. “I just laughed. I laughed so hard I think I almost fell over. Tears were running down my cheeks, I couldn’t stop. My stomach actually started to hurt.”

 

“And then she walked away.” Steve finishes the story for her bluntly. He takes another drink; his whole body is angled away from them, his gaze trained elsewhere but not really focusing on anything. He’s not angry, but he’s definitely uncomfortable.

 

“Very smooth, Smooth Dog.” Danny purposely nudges Steve’s foot under the table, shooting him a smile and trying to get him to lighten up.

 

“Oh, you know the nickname already. His friends never let him live that one down, it was Smooth Dog every day after that.”

 

“Wait - _that’s_ why you’re called Smooth Dog? This is an ironic nickname?” Danny cackles – this story keeps getting better and better. “And here I was thinking it had something to do with the serious eye-fucking you get every time we so much as walk into a bar, no effort required.”

 

“It’s not ironic, Danny, it’s not anything. By the time I got to the SEALs, man, it was just a thing. No one even remembered where it came from, it kinda stuck and followed me around.”

 

“And it wasn’t such a bad thing, in the end,” Catherine joins back in. “If you’d been anything but the completely clueless dork you were, we never would’ve become friends. I mean, we sat together in class the next week, right?”

 

Steve looks at her, smiles a little half-smile.

 

“Yeah, we did.”

 

“And we’ve been friends ever since. Your worst pick-up line was the best thing to happen to us, really.” She puts her hand on Steve’s knee and that’s when Danny realizes he’s had his leg pressed against Steve’s this whole time. Catherine seems to realize it too, her fingers brushing not one thigh but two.

 

Danny’s first instinct is to reel back but he tightens the grin on his face, locking it into place, and pretends absolutely nothing is amiss. They’re just comfortable in each other’s space too. Nothing more.

 

To her credit, Catherine doesn’t react past that first glimmer of understanding. She leaves her hand where it is, palm rubbing over Steve’s worn denims and her fingernails scraping lightly against Danny’s trousers.

 

“Besides, he’s really fantastic in bed so he’s made up for it.”

 

Danny thanks his lucky stars that he wasn’t taking a drink at that moment because he would’ve spit it out all over the table. One look at Catherine tells him that she knew exactly what she was doing with that one.

 

Steve chuckles and shakes his head, and he actually colors a little, a pink flush creeping up his neck.

 

“I forgot how much liquor loosens your tongue.” Steve mumbles and Catherine shrugs unapologetically.

 

“Speaking of tongue-“

 

“Nope, no, don’t even.” Steve puts a hand over her mouth. Danny nearly swallows his own tongue, the visions he’s been fighting hard to ignore all night suddenly gaining more graphic detail, Steve’s mouth up to wicked, dirty and wonderful things. He shifts in his seat, wishing he hadn’t worn a button down shirt. It’s too hot in this damn bar.

 

Catherine has let the talk of Steve’s bedroom talents go and has moved on to other things.

 

“As far as pick ups go, I’m sure you’ve gotten better with time and experience.” She claps Steve’s knee once hard and lets go. “No more lame come-ons.”

 

“Hell, Cath, like I even have time for come-ons? Who would I even try to pick up. I’m with Danno here 24/7.”

 

“We uh, don’t get much time to woo the ladies,” Danny admits, swiping a thumb through the condensation pearling on the outside of his beer bottle. “Steve here thinks the island will fall apart without us.”

 

“Well then, what’s the first thing this guy ever said to you, Danny?”

 

“I believe it was something along the lines of ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Drop your weapon,’ if memory serves,” Danny replies. He looks at Steve with a certain fondness, remembering that first day in Steve’s garage. Man, had he been ready to arrest the son-of-a-bitch right there. “And then he called the governor and took my case.”

 

“Still the charmer, then.” Catherine lifts her glass, lets the ice swirl around the sides. She tilts her head, eyes moving back and forth between them.

 

“You can’t base anything on what Danny says,” Steve gestures to Danny. “I wasn’t hitting on him, so our first conversation has nothing to do with this.”

 

“It was a helluva first impression though,” Danny points out. “Then you had me re-assigned to Five-O without even asking me, _then_ you promptly got me _shot_.”

 

“Oh, Steve, you love to start off on the wrong foot, don’t you?” Catherine comments. She lifts his beer from his grasp and helps herself to a swig. After taking a drink, she points the bottleneck at Steve and then at him. “Well if our example’s anything to go by, with the way you guys began, you two are set to be friends forever.”

 

“Aw, BFFs, Steven. If we get one of those necklaces, I want the half that says ‘best.’” Danny uses his hands to form a heart shape over the center of his chest.

 

“I don’t think they’re made that way, Danno. I think you’d get a half that says like, ‘Be Fri’…and then the other part has the other half of the word.”

 

“Well that’s just stupid. Why do you even know that.”

 

“I have a sister, that’s how. You have a daughter, why don’t you know that?”

 

“Grace isn’t quite in the stupid necklace phase yet. Actually, I suspect Grace will never have a stupid necklace phase, because she’s my kid and my kid does not have stupid necklace phases.”

 

“She will.” Catherine and Steve say at the same time and he cracks a real, full-wattage Steve smile for the first time since Catherine began her story.

 

“At least now I know what to get you for your birthday. You two prefer gold or silver?”

 

“Oh, silver, definitely. Goes better with my eyes.” Danny replies and Catherine pretends to make note.

 

“My birthday, I don’t get a say?” Steve asks and Danny shakes his head.

 

“Absolutely not. Not at all.”

 

A loud ring interrupts them and Catherine starts digging through her purse to find her phone. She glances at the screen.

 

“It’s Roger. Be right back.” Steve nods and quickly gets up to let her out of the booth. She clicks a button on the phone and answers with a smile. “Hi, honey, can you hang on a sec? I’m in a bar, I can’t hear you.”

 

Danny raises his eyebrows at Steve as she heads for the exit.

 

“Roger? Honey?”

 

“It’s her boyfriend. He’s Belgian.”

 

“Ah. Okay.” Danny processes this new information and finds himself still confused. “So…what…this Roger is European in the way that doesn’t mind his girlfriend being in Hawaii and sleeping with another guy?”

 

“Cath and I aren’t sleeping together.” Steve states like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and he can’t believe Danny wasn’t already aware. “Not since last time she was in town couple months ago.”

 

“You’re…not. Okay, you could’ve fooled me.”

 

“What?”

 

“Come on, Steve, she’s wearing your shirt.”

 

“No she’s not.”

 

“I’ve seen you wear that shirt. That’s your shirt. You don’t need to lie to me, I’m not judging –”

 

“We went to the same school. It never occurred to you that she has the same shirt?”

 

“Well…no. No it didn’t. Because you were wearing that shirt last week-“

 

“And it’s still sitting in my dirty laundry.”

 

“You two have been all over each other all night.”

 

“No we haven’t.”

 

“Yes you have.”

 

“Danny, it’s not like we’re sitting here making out or anything. I mean, yeah, we’re close, we touch, whatever. You and I, we touch, does that mean we’re sleeping together?”

 

“We don’t touch.”

 

“Oh we don’t?”

 

“Not more than the appropriate, accepted, casual amount, no.”

 

“Really.” To prove his point, Steve shifts his leg, rubbing his thigh against Danny’s.

 

Danny tenses but Steve doesn’t stop. He leans forward a little in his seat, his knee moving that last inch and pressing against the erection that is quickly, almost instantaneously, filling to tent the front of Danny’s pants.

 

Danny wants to reach across the table and kiss him, lick him, maul him, do _something_ to him. Maybe throw him down on the table and climb all over him.

 

Instead Danny bites his bottom lip and swallows hard. Steve’s gaze flicks down to his mouth, then back up to his eyes.

 

“Is this the appropriate, accepted, casual amount, Danno?”

 

He’s saved from answering by the vibration of Steve’s phone. Steve holds their stare for a moment longer and then lets it break as he reaches into his pocket. Danny lets out the breath he’d been holding.

 

Steve presses a few buttons and then an amused smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.

 

Steve doesn’t fill him in though, as if Danny weren’t torqued up and agitated enough as it is.

 

“What’s up.” Danny asks, voice tight and dry.

 

“Text from Cath. She has a question for you.” He doesn’t look up, thumbs moving as he taps out a response and sends.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Hang on, she’s gonna text you right now.” Steve grins, lopsided. “Gave her your number.”

 

On cue, Danny’s phone buzzes.

 

“My interest is piqued enough that I’m willing to overlook your complete lack of consideration regarding my well-known aversion to texting,” he gripes and reads the message from Catherine. It’s not at all what he expected, though really he should have seen it coming. “Well, Steven. It’s not so much a question for me as a question she’d like me to ask you.”

 

“And now my interest is piqued.”

 

“It wasn’t piqued before? Your Girl Friday is asking for my phone number to talk to me and that didn’t interest you at all prior to this?”

 

“What can I say, I’m jaded and hard to surprise. Out with it, Danno.”

 

“You really want me to ask you this?”

 

“I don’t know what the question is but as you’re always telling me, I’m a risk-taker. I’ll take the gamble.”

 

Danny stares at the small screen of his phone for a long minute, weighing his options. It’d be very easy to not do this. He could just refuse, erase this message, and pretend it never happened.

 

It’s probably the smarter thing to do.

 

But maybe Steve’s wearing off on him, or maybe it’s the booze, because even as profoundly idiotic as it would be and how likely it is to blow up in his face, or how sure he is that he’ll regret it tomorrow, he kinda wants to do it anyway. Consequences be damned.

 

He can blame Catherine if it all goes wrong.

 

Danny takes a deep breath and sets the phone down on the table. Then he looks at Steve. Steve, who’s gorgeous and perfect and infuriating enough to shake his nerves through and through, and gorgeous and perfect and infuriating enough that despite the nerves he _needs_ to take this chance and make it happen.

 

“I was just wondering…Steve…” He coughs once lightly, shifts in his seat. “I was wondering if you would like to have sex with me sometime.”

 

Steve stares at him for what seems like forever and a day. Then a huge smile spreads across his face and Danny’s heart catches, stuttering to start again.

 

“I’ll be damned…” Steve stands up and Danny worries for an unreasonable second that Steve is going to leave. Instead he stays by the end of the table and looks down at Danny, his smile taking on a tinge of wonder. “That pick up line actually _does_ work.”

 

Danny gets up, crowding close to Steve’s body. Steve puts a hand on his hip as if to hold him steady.

 

“It just takes a man of great skill and prowess to pull it off properly, McGarrett,” Danny states, trying to clamp down on the urge to kiss Steve right here.

 

As usual, Steve doesn’t resist, doesn’t pause to consider the ramifications. His kiss sets Danny’s head spinning and he doesn’t stop until Danny’s clutching his waist just in order to stay upright.

 

“When you said sometime, you meant tonight, right?” Steve asks when he finally pulls away, leaving both of them struggling for air.

 

“Yeah, uh-huh, yes,” Danny replies less-than-brilliantly, nodding his head.

 

“Okay, good.”

 

As he hurriedly follows Steve to the exit, he catches sight of Catherine coming back inside. She throws a smile in their direction, and tosses in a wink as they pass her by.

 

She doesn’t look at all surprised or perturbed at being left behind and Steve doesn’t stop to explain or even say good-bye.

 

For a split second Danny wonders if she and Steve had rigged this, some big plan or quick con to make this very thing happen, but he quickly dismisses the idea.

 

Catherine’s awesome enough to have pushed them together all on her own.

 

And besides, Steve’s just not that smooth.

 


End file.
